School Board mulls deputies in five elementary schools

GLOUCESTER — The Gloucester County Sheriff's Office could have deputies assigned as school resource officers to all five elementary schools as soon as September if funding is worked out.

Sheriff Darrell Warren and the Gloucester County School Board discussed at a Jan. 24 work session the possibility of placing school resource officers at each of the five elementary schools.

Warren said it may be a good time to consider placing school resource officers at elementary schools because grants may be made available to help pay for the positions.

School Board Member Anita Parker asked Warren how long it would take to implement adding school resources officers to the five elementary schools.

Warren replied that he could probably allocate two deputies now and "bounce them around" from school to school. The others could be added for the start of the next school year, he said.

School Board Member Carla Hook said she "absolutely" thinks every school should have a school resource officer as soon as possible. She asked Warren what it would cost.

Paying the salary and fringe benefits for a school resource officer ranges from about $48,000 a year to $68,000, Warren said. Superintendent Ben Kiser said the school system currently pays $200,000 a year for four school resource officers to work 10 months, so he estimated adding two more officers would be about $100,000.

The county pays the salaries of the school resource officers for the two months out of the year they aren't working at schools.

Other factors to consider in adding school resources officers are the $6,700 it costs to outfit each deputy and buying vehicles, Warren said. At the moment he has two spare vehicles available, Warren said.

"For five, I don't have five spare cars," Warren said.

Warren said the Gloucester Sheriff's Office has done as much as anybody can to prepare for an active shooting incident in a school. This includes training in schools, putting maps of each school on deputies' computers in their vehicles and having school resource officers on campus.

Seconds count when a shooter is on campus, he said.

"We hear a lot of courageous things teachers have done, but to ask our teachers to fight off a gunman, it's not something if my spouse was a teacher I'd ask her to do," Warren said.